Abstract

Carbonate rocks are omnipresent in the case of the Balearic archipelago. This fact, together with an appropriate climatology, implies that karstic processes are the main responsible for the landscape development as well as the littoral shaping. The special geomorphological and hydrologic conditions of this area, along with sea-level, ecology, or paleoclimate, provokes a littoral complex interaction that give rise to a characteristic coastline. The objective of the present paper deals with the brief description of all related aspects of the endokarstic processes that affect the littoral fringe and summarizing their effects in the morphologic development of the coastline.